Sherlock, Watson, and & Tossed Duvet: Elementary Fan-Fiction Contest
by rosepetals220
Summary: *** The following is my first ever fan-fiction, and is part of a contest for the Elementary Fans group on Facebook. The contest involves writing a work of fan fiction of any length which includes the following elements: an umbrella, a prescription, a ransom note, a sushi order, and the line "the duvet was tossed carelessly in the corner."


*** The following is my first ever fan-fiction, and is part of a contest for the Elementary Fans group on Facebook. The contest involves writing a work of fan fiction of any length which includes the following elements: an umbrella, a prescription, a ransom note, a sushi order, and the line "the duvet was tossed carelessly in the corner." This piece became a lot longer than I had originally intended because I was trying to logically fit in all the components! Please don't hesitate to leave feedback or questions. For more information on the contest or Facebook group, go to: groups/538300592880798/?ref=br_tf

"We have a case!" Sherlock storms through the front door to the Brownstone so frantically Joan almost drops her glass of tea. She should be used to this by now, she thinks to herself. "Remember the Chinese analyst Lang Le we worked with on the Buford case?" Joan thinks for a second, "I remember—she realized that the artifacts Buford was selling to museums were fake which helped us figure out that he was the one who had murdered the curator of the Browne Museum." "That's right. Apparently she has a taste for being at the right place at the most unfortunate time, because she's been missing for upwards of four days. Last heard from when she told her employer she was going to eat lunch at a Japanese restaurant." "Awesome," Joan says, which surprises him—he looks at her quizzically. "Not that she's missing, I always thought she was really sweet. It's great that we're going to a restaurant. I'm starving." He demands focus, which is ironic considering it's usually the other way around, and they're off. At Shogun Japanese Restaurant, Joan orders hibachi and a dragon roll for them to split, although Sherlock is bouncing off the walls interviewing servers and management. Other than their server, a waiter named Ho who is dodgy at best, and acting very peculiarly, no one speaks much English other than food terminology, but fortunately, Sherlock speaks Japanese. Joan is not surprised, No one remembers Lang Le, but Sherlock astutely points out that the victim's car is still in the parking lot, which demands sudden attention from the staff, particularly Ho, who Joan is certain looks familiar but she cannot recall how. Sherlock and Joan head to the parking lot, and he breaks into the car with Joan's assistance, and produces the following receipt, indicating that on the day the victim disappeared she ordered the following pieces of sushi:

2 dragon rolls

1 Shrimp tempura

1 vegetable tempura

1 Crunchy Roll

1 Eel Roll

1 House Special Roll

Extra soy sauce

The sushi order is huge. Joan points out that Lang ordered three times the amount of food that Joan herself just ordered, and she's with Sherlock. "Clearly she wasn't alone" – remarks our hero Holmes, and Joan hits him back quickly with a "No shit, Sherlock!" He gives her a look of pure disdain with a little hint of a smirk as he tries his hardest not to laugh, suggesting instead that they have a look at the victim's apartment. It's close enough that it's possible she went back on foot for some reason. He also phones Captain Gregson to ask that the vehicle be impounded so that he can look at it further at the station. Gregson agrees, as long as he's filled in later. Sherlock suggests a walk, so that they can retrace exactly Lang Le's steps on the route back to her apartment, if that's indeed where she went.

Sherlock and Joan lock the vehicle back up, and begin to head in the general direction of Lang Le's apartment when Joan notices the waiter who had waited on them earlier sneaking out of the back of the restaurant. "I knew there was something creepy about that guy. He had a smell to him I couldn't quite put my finger on, I guess he often breaks for smoke breaks. Disgusting habit. And I swear I've seen him somewhere before." She watches as the server, Ho, looks right and left to make sure no one is looking, and then darts in the general direction of Lang Le's car. Sherlock grabs Joan's elbow just in the knick of time and yanks her behind a nearby car, and they notice the waiter Ho try to enter Lang's car to no avail. He punches the door in frustration and takes off down the street in a hurried walk. Of course, Sherlock wants to follow him.

It starts raining on their way and Joan pulls out of her bag a rather peculiar umbrella, hundreds of brightly colored cubes arranged in rainbow stripes and zig zag patterns. "Joan, are you insane? Have I taught you absolutely nothing about being an effective detective? This hideous umbrella is the furthest possible thing from nonchalant." "Oh, I apologize," she begins to snort back at him, "I received my lessons on being inconspicuous from the British man who wears crazy socks and vests with t-shirts with offensive phrases on them." Sherlock begins to grin and covers it with a sudden yet important question, "where did that umbrella even come from?" She thinks about it for a second while continuing their brisk walk after the suspect onto a busy avenue, the street still slightly damp and the rain falling faster each second. "Hmm, I don't know, but it makes sense that it would belong to Miss Hudson, it's very girlie and has a great sense of pride." "Watson, Miss Hudson is far more classic than that, and besides, she refuses to go out in water at all because it messes up her faux hair extensions. Perhaps it's your friend Stacey's." "Stacey hasn't returned to the brownstone since the last time she slept with you and you called her Sharon." "I did? That was the name of the prima ballerina from the week before. If you had slept with her you wouldn't have been able to forget her name, either." Joan snorts, "And you wonder why I never bring my friends around you on purpose." Clearly agitated, she changes the topic back to the case at hand. "Where is he going?" They watch as Ho ducks into an apartment building that Sherlock recognizes as the victim's. He heads up the stairs, they take the elevator, "Elevator", hisses Sherlock. "Are you crazy? We'll lose him," half screeches Joan. "We'll lose him anyway if you clamor up the stairs in those 6 inch heels! You should hear what you sound like sometimes when I'm underneath you in the Brownstone." Obviously, there was a huge opportunity for retort filled with innuendo, but Joan and Sherlock have to concentrate as the elevator door has opened just in time to see the waiter, ever impatient, kicking open the victim's door, loud enough so that a neighbor has opened her door, scaring him off. He can be seen glaring at Sherlock & Joan on the way past them and down the stairs. The neighbor threatens to call police and Sherlock tells him they are with the police & will alert them for her.

They enter the missing woman's apartment, and Captain Gregson and Detective Bell, who were not far away, join them. Bell asks what's going on and Gregson wants to know if this has anything to do with the impounded car, and why Sherlock didn't say anything earlier about this case. Sherlock points out that the woman has not yet been missing for 48 hours, and that he was doing someone a favor, but now that there is an abandoned vehicle and a broken down door by a known perpetrator, surely there is a reason for alarm at this point. Gregson agrees and offers the help of the NYPD, as well as the crime scene techs. Bell runs off to catch Ho after Watson gives him a thorough description of the waiter, and Sherlock wonders what the suspect wanted from the apartment. He finds a laptop, and immediately takes it to check it at the brownstone, Joan finds a prescription bottle for prednisone, which as she explains, indicates that the subject had "inflammation, or a general allergy to something" – "That's non-specific and super unhelpful," whines our always mature Sherlock Holmes. "Actually, taking into account the prednisone, and all of this specialty gluten free food in the kitchen, I think Lang Le had celiac's disease. It's an autoimmune disorder which prohibits a person from eating anything made from wheat, or flour, among other things. "A celiac would never have eaten soy sauce or crunchy rolls or eel- there's no way that she ate the sushi order (or any part of it) unless she became very ill or someone else was there." "But why go to all the trouble of ordering all that food if you're not even going to eat a single bite of it?" continues Joan. "That, my dear Watson, is the question of the hour."

Suddenly, Bell calls to ask if they can describe the Chinese woman they're looking for, and once they do, he remarks that they need to come to the station as soon as possible. Sherlock asks why, and Bell says "because I think I'm looking right at her!"

They race to the station, and something is off. Lang looks like herself, and in good health, but she refuses to talk and doesn't even look Sherlock or Joan in the eye when they arrive, and she was on quite friendly terms with them in the investigation.

"I don't understand what's going on," Joan remarks—"she was such a sweet girl."

"Actually," Bell says, "I think I can explain that. She's spooked, and has been held against her will for almost 2 days now. There's a restraining order against Ho, apparently they used to date, and he stalked her for some time. When she went to the restaurant, he saw her and followed her home. I guess she knew he knew what her car looked like, so she decided to hoof it. Maybe she thought that was safer, I don't know. Maybe he talked her into giving her a ride. Either way, I'm thankful we've got her."

"Yeah…" Joan agreed, but all she had to do was glance at Sherlock to know he was thinking what she was. Something didn't add up.

"Have you ever been stalked?" she asked Sherlock, on the way home. "Many times," he started, "You look surprised. You've met me, do you really think many women can resist my charms? Can you?" "I'll try," Joan said, in the most sarcastic way possible, and it was so rude that Sherlock couldn't help but laugh. "Back to the point. I've never been stalked, but I can guarantee you that if I had, the last place you would ever catch me would be at the known employer of my stalker." "You caught that too," said Sherlock. "Something's definitely off. I just have to figure out what it is." "You?" "We. We just have to figure out what it is."

Figure it out they did, when they found the ransom note the next morning. Sherlock had decided to go back over the car, and inside this time, he found what had escaped him in the brief search the day before: a ransom note.

Rose is with me now. She is property of China. You may pay $1,000,000 US for her safe return to this country, otherwise she will be executed or returned to service promptly at our discretion.

"That's one hell of a ransom note," Joan started, "and to think this is my mother's homeland. And who is Rose?" They throw around different ideas, an alias, a spy name, a distant relative, and finally it hits them.

"Twins."

"What?" Joan asks, Sherlock just repeats his earlier assumption.

"Twins,"

"I heard you, but what do you mean, you think Lang has a twin? That's who Rose is? That doesn't explain the Celiac's, it's a genetic disorder."

"Fraternal twins. Think about it…. They would still look enough alike to pass more than a passing resemblance to each other. Especially if no one knew about the other."

"So you think Rose is who Ho had in captivity?"

"It explains the cold attitude and the inability to answer certain questions. Unless she's suffering from amnesia, but I doubt that seriously.'"

"So you think… the Chinese government has Lang?"

"That, Watson, is precisely what I think."

Rose Le, who apparently, judging by the context of the ransom note, was some kind of spy, must have left China and headed immediately to Lang's home. Her intent was to clear her sisters bank accounts, take her car, and use her identity to make contacts to travel to meet a man who would create a fraudulent passport for her so that she could live out the rest of her days under an assumed name and comfortably. Her plan was thwarted when she went to Shogun, thinking she could meet a contact there, because as soon as she ordered Ho recognized her, and thinking she was Lang, promptly started acting so weird that Rose started to head out, when in the parking lot, she saw that Lang was looking for her, and also saw her be abducted by Cheng, leaving the ransom note, because he thought Lang was Rose. Rose, fearing only that Ho would call the police on her did not realize the real threat he posed and was soon kidnapped by him to be held captive in his home until Bell rescued her, unable to either save her sister or just flee.

"I'm so glad you figured that out, " says Watson exhaustedly. "We're home. I'm going to bed. We will find Lang first thing in the morning."

Sherlock stays up all night, as he always does, in his vampire like way proven by the fact that he doesn't really have his own bed, and stares at his wall of crazy. As soon as he has figured out where Lang is and arranged for her safe release, he's ready to share the news with his equal partner in both stature and spirit.

He heads to her room to wake her, as he does almost every other morning when he can't stand to work without her any longer. Sometimes he works extra tediously just to have a reason to finish & wake her, she thinks he's gloating but really he's just explaining what he's come across while simultaneously trying not to smile watching her open her eyes and turn into the alert creature he's grown so accustomed to. Her liveliness erased his darkness when it was most needed, yet oddly, sometimes her calmness subdues his frenzy. He opens the door, pushes it back quietly, Clyde in his pocket if he needs a backup, yet- she isn't there. The duvet was tossed carelessly in the corner, so unlike the meticulous Joan he knows and loves. For a second he fears that something has happened to her, or worse yet, that Mycroft has been here another time—but then, he hears a giggle behind him and whirls around to see her- wearing a towel- his favorite towel, and nothing more.

"I knew you'd try to wake me up this morning," she begins her banter—"but I was ready for you. I've even showered already, and I only had to set 1 of my 3 alarms."

He's shocked but manages to hide his surprise, "Interesting. I'm quite impressed for you, Watson. But what exactly is it that you had to show me?"

Joan approached him, leaned in very closely as to kiss him, and reached down as if to grab at his pants…. He almost lost focus and consciousness all at once. He managed to stand upright long enough to realize she had opened his pocket and rescued Clyde, who at this moment was out of lettuce and gasping for light. "is that Clyde in your pocket, or were you just happy to see me?"

Sherlock could barely contain his pleasure at her sexiness & coyness all wrapped in one, but managed to get ahold of himself long enough to ask "and the surprise?"

"I solved the case," she said. He looks confused, it was his revelation that led him to call Gregson and he hadn't mentioned hearing from Joan. "The case?" He inquired. "Oh please, I know you already solved the Le one, I heard you on the phone this morning. I'm glad she's okay. Well, I'm glad they're both okay. I was talking about the the umbrella, I figured out where it came from. It belongs to Gay, she had said the umbrella reminded her of the periodic table of the elements. We were both wrong." She giggles and kisses him fondly on the cheek.

Sherlock had never been so happy to be wrong in his entire life.


End file.
